In your opinion is the slower SSD controversy in the base M2 Air overblown?

[1BadManVan]

'others'... how many others? 2? 3?

this is such a ridiculous thread (altho, lol, here i am, posting).

we don't know what went on at apple during the design and implementation of the M2 air. apple set a price, the 256gb drive is what it is, and you can buy it... or not.

i'm happy with mine, no complaints. but then, i'm just enjoying working on it, am not benchmarking, bending, or otherwise testing & torturing it.

if anyone thinks it's a serious issue, they do not have to buy it! problem solved 👍

Everyone looks at the base drive speed and puts on their blinders to the rest of upgrades put into this m2. Why do people think that 2 years later, inflation, bigger and brighter screen, better webcam, faster ram, faster cpu, graphics etc. But for some reason thinks this should have been the exact same price. Massive inflation alone would give apple cause to raise the price, but this also a full redesigned laptop

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Yes - and I believe it’s been overblown because the self-styled ‘reviewers’ failed to take into account that the target audience will virtually never move data to the point where 1,500mbs is a bottleneck.

Everything is constantly about stress testing in unrealistic scenarios, and quite frankly it makes me angry.

 

[VaruLV]

'such behavior'..? it's amazing how people can complain about something when they know nothing about what went on behind the scenes, how and why apple got to this drive, in this model.

if apple has 'cheated' people... prove it. otherwise, it's just ranting, and accomplishes nothing.

Well then be so kind and share your insiders wisdom as to why Apple cheaped out with base config SSD?
Apple deliberately kept quiet about much lower performance of updated, considerably more expensive device, so, yeah, I dont have to prove anything, its on Apple and their lack of ethics and love for virtue signalling on other issues where they paint them all white and holly, while in reality just thinking how to milk their customers for every penny.
Thats how big corporations work, but you can still be blind to it and keep defending Apple and your purchase like its personal attack or insult to you, good luck with that

Higher price=slower performance in some tasks and all that not communicated officially by Apple is not what I would call conspiracy theory that I or other members of this forum or reviewers have come up with, its simply a fact of what Apple has done and there is no way for Apple talking themselves out of it - customers who bought base level M2 Air and paid hefty premium over previous model, especially in Europe(dont know about other parts of the world) get much lower performance, I think people have rights to be upset about such move by Apple regardless of their motives which they, in Apples fashion, have kept to themselves.

 

[dallas112678]

Yes and no:

1. Is the backlash at Apple putting a slower drive in a newer and more expensive computer overblown? Absolutely not, that really is unacceptable given the prices.

2. Is the backlash on the performance impact of the slower drives overblown? Absolutely yes, as if you are doing a lot of video editing or many transfers of large files where that speed difference would actually be noticeable then you almost certainly aren't going for the 256GB version anyway.

 

[fisherking]

Well then be so kind and share your insiders wisdom as to why Apple cheaped out with base config SSD?
Apple deliberately kept quiet about much lower performance of updated, considerably more expensive device, so, yeah, I dont have to prove anything, its on Apple and their lack of ethics and love for virtue signalling on other issues where they paint them all white and holly, while in reality just thinking how to milk their customers for every penny.
Thats how big corporations work, but you can still be blind to it and keep defending Apple and your purchase like its personal attack or insult to you, good luck with that

i don't haver insider info; neither do you. so, everything else (what you say, what i say) is opinion, speculation, theory.

none of which is a substitute for fact.

 

[ElRojito]

I don't think the majority of users will even notice. That said, it's like a vehicle manufacturer putting a governor on the speed on later-model cars. Will most people drive fast enough to get limited? probably not. But it's still dumb to restrict capability for a likely monetary reason when the previous model didn't have said limitation.

 

[JPack]

How would having two chips help? The capacity is still the same, isn’t it?

When capacity is doubled using a single chip, the TBW rating doesn't always double. If you look at SK Hynix for example, which is an Apple supplier, their P31 SSD gets only 50% higher endurance when capacity is doubled.

 

[BootsWalking]

Everyone looks at the base drive speed and puts on their blinders to the rest of upgrades put into this m2. Why do people think that 2 years later, inflation, bigger and brighter screen, better webcam, faster ram, faster cpu, graphics etc. But for some reason thinks this should have been the exact same price. Massive inflation alone would give apple cause to raise the price, but this also a full redesigned laptop

Because computers have been in a deflationary cycle for over a decade and that hasn't changed with the recent increase in general inflation. That has meant faster and better components every year at the prior year's prices. That has held true in the PC world.

 

[Jacoblee23]

Everyone looks at the base drive speed and puts on their blinders to the rest of upgrades put into this m2. Why do people think that 2 years later, inflation, bigger and brighter screen, better webcam, faster ram, faster cpu, graphics etc. But for some reason thinks this should have been the exact same price. Massive inflation alone would give apple cause to raise the price, but this also a full redesigned laptop

I agree with this. Inflation is in everything right now. This isn't any different.

 

[Jacoblee23]

Yes - and I believe it’s been overblown because the self-styled ‘reviewers’ failed to take into account that the target audience will virtually never move data to the point where 1,500mbs is a bottleneck.

Everything is constantly about stress testing in unrealistic scenarios, and quite frankly it makes me angry.

100%. I was on the fence and half expecting this m2 base air to be noticeably slower than the m1. I was pleasantly surprised when that was shown not to be the case in my experience. This is the best MacBook design apple has ever done IMO so I am glad that for me the base works out fine.

 

[BootsWalking]

It's hard for a near 50% reduction in SSD speed to be overblown.

 

[Madhatter32]

Yes over blown. A 2017 QX60 Infiniti has 3.5-liter direct-injected V-6 that makes 295 hp. New 2022 model. Outside redesign...still has 3.5-liter, direct-injected V-6 that makes 295 hp.

People whine about this non issue that we've been seeing in the auto industry for years.

2017 ... 295 hp

If 2022 ... 200 hp (and you thought it would atleast match the 2017), you should not be a happy with your purchase.

So, it's not an overblown issue.

 

[cupcakes2000]

It’s a massively overblown issue. It exists only in the mind of the tech savvy user which would never buy the machine in the first place. My girlfriend has one, and not only she hasn’t noticed, nor would ever notice, she couldn’t care less. It’s so fast, and for anything a normal (her) user does, it blasts prior machines out of the water, even though those prior machines also performed excellently.

 

[fisherking]

2017 ... 295 hp

If 2022 ... 200 hp (and you thought it would atleast match the 2017), you should not be a happy with your purchase.

So, it's not an overblown issue.

at the moment, 56 people in the forum say it's overblown, 22 say it isn't, and 9 haven't tested it yet.

of those 22 people, how many HAVE an M2 air, and are describing their experiences? what percentage of those 22 haven't tested it yet? hmmmmmm 🤔

EDIT: just realizing: the doomsayers will go about this (again, wonder how many of them actually own a new air?) until they either tire out, or something else happens in the world of the mac to divert their attention.

meanwhile, will leave this thread, and get back to enjoying the fast & functional air i do in fact own 👍

 

[Madhatter32]

at the moment, 56 people in the forum say it's overblown, 22 say it isn't, and 9 haven't tested it yet.

of those 22 people, how many HAVE an M2 air, and are describing their experiences? what percentage of those 22 haven't tested it yet? hmmmmmm 🤔

Personal experiences have absolutely nothing to do with it. This is about performance and getting your money's worth. In the Infiniti example, should a person be quite content with a car that drives great at 65 mph (which is the speed most people drive) if it cannot perform above 100 mph? I would say no.😉

 

[Analog Kid]

Personal experiences have absolutely nothing to do with it.

😂 Do you often substitute other people's experience for your own?

"I like chocolate"
"No you don't!"
"I don't like chocolate"

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

In the Infiniti example, should a person be quite content with a car that drives great at 65 mph (which is the speed most people drive) if it cannot perform above 100 mph? I would say no.😉

... What? That's a poor analogy.

The MacBook Air is not designed for people driving above 100mph, and those that do would get a MacBook Pro no hesitation.

Equally, the average user - a student, parent, consumer who has no need for stressing a system - could not care less about the disk read and write speeds, let alone understand how they impact real world performance. The apps, files and processes they utilise are not bottlenecked by the speed of the drive.

People seem to forget just how fast the 256gb drive still is. "Getting your money's worth" is only relevant if you're required to use the additional performance in the first place. Just because a notebook with twice the storage has twice the speed, doesn't mean that a user is suddenly going to think "Holy smoke - now I can learn to video edit and copy that 8K video twice as fast!"

 

[Madhatter32]

😂 Do you often substitute other people's experience for your own?

"I like chocolate"
"No you don't!"
"I don't like chocolate"

I do not. But for an issue like this one, I would ask you: Do you often ignore math?😂

 

[Analog Kid]

When capacity is doubled using a single chip, the TBW rating doesn't always double. If you look at SK Hynix for example, which is an Apple supplier, their P31 SSD gets only 50% higher endurance when capacity is doubled.

The P31 expands capacity by adding dice.

"There are four dies per package on the 500GB model, eight in total, as well as 8 dies per package on the 1TB model, for 16 in total. "

 

[Analog Kid]

I do not. But for an issue like this one, I would ask you: Do you often ignore math?😂

Which math in particular?

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

It's hard for a near 50% reduction in SSD speed to be overblown.

So, Microsoft Office, Pages/Keynote/Numbers, Safari, Mail and the many other consumer and productivity apps are all 50% slower now, huh?

Better watch out copying them Word files... 75 kb is a killer these days!

 

[Fatus_Asticus]

Not over blown at all.

The information was accurately portrayed in all the videos. The only problem was people were waiting for years for this new MBA and didn't want to hear anything bad about their precious. If you don't care about SSD speeds, swap and number of chips and want to by a premium product at a premium price with infefior components that is your money and your decision.

When these single chips start failing due to swap writing consuming 100% more writes every single day you can have the surprised Kermit face when you come here to complain and the response is "well you shouldn't have bought the inferior base unit (8gb/256gb)".

 

[jdb8167]

When these single chips start failing due to swap writing consuming 100% more writes every single day you can have the surprised Kermit face when you come here to complain and the response is "well you shouldn't have bought the inferior base unit (8gb/256gb)".

If the 256 GB M2 MacBooks start failing I certainly will have a "surprised" face. I really don't think that is going to happen.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Not over blown at all.

The information was accurately portrayed in all the videos.

Not a single person has denied that. The question isn't if the speeds are slower, but if the targeted consumer would find this detrimental. All signs are point to no. Unless, that is, you feel the need to manage 8K video on a base consumer notebook...

The only problem was people were waiting for years for this new MBA and didn't want to hear anything bad about their precious. If you don't care about SSD speeds and want to by a premium product at a premium price with infefior components that is your money and your decision.

Inferior components? It's one less SSD die...

When these single chips start failing due to swap writing consuming 50% more writes every single day you can have the surprised Kermit face when you come here to complain and the response is "well you shouldn't have bought the inferior base unit (8gb/256gb)".

Clearly you don't understand how SSD's work. The dies are not just empty boxes that data is dropped into; rather the data itself is distributed across all dies unilaterally. So it doesn't matter if you have a 256gb or 512gb device, they both have equal failure rates.

 

[Analog Kid]

The information was accurately portrayed in all the videos. [...]

When these single chips start failing due to swap writing consuming 100% more writes every single day

You show me a video saying swap size is a function of SSD speed, and I'll show you a video that doesn't portray information accurately.